revit in plain english

Monday, November 28, 2016

Dynamo is hard to learn. There, I said it. But, it is useful and worth learning. To get started you can watch my presentation from Autodesk University 2016. It's geared for people who are not geniuses, like me. Reason I say that is most of the classes and videos I have watched get very complicated, very fast. This class has been designed to get you through that initial steep learning curve in about 60 mins.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Problem/Bug: Revit 2017 not printing views with 'Phasing Graphic Overrides' properly. In other words, the printed PDF looks different than the Revit view.

Some say, 'just print Raster'. This is just not practical for the entire set. Raster files which are printed to a proper degree of quality end up being HUGE file sizes. Plus, you can't measure off the rasterized PDF.

Here was the only workaround that I could get to work...

1. Selectively print only the files with Phasing Graphic Overrides to raster PDF
2. Print the rest of the set as vector PDF
3. Using Bluebeam, combine the raster and vector sheets together
4. Unfortunately the Adobe reader gives an error when attempting to open this file. So to get around this I printed the combined PDF from Bluebeam to another PDF. This seems to make the Adobe reader accept the file.

Autodesk, if you're listening, please improve the print function of Revit. Please include a rock solid PDF export and import function. That being said, it was who Autodesk removed the PDF functionality that Revit had from the beginning...

Revit Idea site backs me up on this...http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/2d-pdf-printing-support/idi-p/6325091

Friday, September 30, 2016

Hey, just learned about a place to post constructive ideas (rants) to improve Revit. I have posted a couple and will keep doing so. There are some really good top voted ideas on this site.

My general theme is...
Don't give us a tool that will do 'anything'. We have that, it's called AutoCAD. Give us a tool that is specifically honed to produce the deliverables that we are required to create to make money. That's why we jumped onto Revit in the first place.

At best the developers read the site and improve Revit. At worst we get to realize we are not alone. I think it's a good start.

My wish is that all Revit objects have a property reporting on their facing direction based upon the True North.

This would be especially useful for Walls, Windows and Doors.

Reason:

Almost every Building Department in North America requires a 'Spatial Separation' table. This shows the total exposed wall area, the total unprotected area (not fire rated) and a percentage of the two. This is required for each direction North, South, East and West.

We also need the correct exterior wall face areas...already posted the idea.

My wish is to be able to schedule the exterior and interior faces of walls INCLUDING wall ends. This would be another property of the wall which could be scheduled. It would not depend on the join condition or Location Line.

Almost every Building Department in North America requires a 'Spatial Separation' table. This shows the total exposed wall area, the total unprotected area (not fire rated) and a percentage of the two. This is required for each direction North, South, East and West.

Currently this is not possible to calculate in Revit. The only way is to draw Filled Regions and use Dynamo to calculate.

Friday, August 12, 2016

Wow, just realized I've been writing this blog for 10 years. I honestly thought we would be moved on to the 'next' BIM software by now. Revit has certainly taken over the AEC industry but not nearly as fast as I thought it would 10 years ago. In fact, I thought I was way behind the curve at that time.

At that time there was a small but very helpful Revit community. I was so inspired by Steve Stafford's blog I copied it. So, thank you to Steve, Phil Read, Richard Ziegler and the countless others who unselfishly have answered my Revit and BIM questions. I should also thank Autodesk who have been prudent caretakers of Revit and Navisworks.

What's next? Dynamo certainly extends the possibilities of Revit over the next few years. I'm certain that the Minecraft generation is going to come up with something revolutionary. Some words spring to mind; Online, Multiplayer, VR, Open Database, Simple, Automated, we'll see.

The purpose of this blog stays the same; a way to remember and share Revit (Dynamo and related) workarounds, fixes and best practices, always in plain English I hope.

In Revit 2017 you can't apply Revisions to all Sheets in one dialog box. You have to manually pick sheet by sheet and turn on the applicable Revision-very time consuming. The free Up Rev App by Xrev fixes exactly this. Get it here on the Autodesk App Exchange.

Note: you need to save both parts of Revit 2017 installer in the same folder (e.g. C:\Autodesk). Then double-click on the first file (the file that has 001 in its name) to start the product installers extraction process.

C. Install Revit Content Library 2017 as follows

Logon as an Administrator.

Empty your TEMP folder. To open the TEMP folder, type %TEMP% in the address bar of Windows Explorer and hit Enter.

Disable your Antivirus software.

Disable UAC.

Start Revit 2017 installer and install Revit Content Library.

If the installation fails, please provide the installation install logs created in your TEMP folder during this product installation attempt

Friday, July 22, 2016

You can't directly convert AutoCAD 'Points' into a Revit surface. But you can convert the AutoCAD 'Points' into a csv with XYZ coordinates. Seems that contours come out a little smoother but if this is all you got it's better than nothing. Here's how...